Should Stay at Home Dads Do the Laundry?

When we lived in Manhattan, I would meet up with the playground gang. We would chase the kids and chat about veggie bootie and life. Everybody had their own interests outside the kids, so there was always a lot to talk about. We were also lucky enough to have a couple of stay at home dads in the group to keep things interesting. And Andrew did keep things interesting.

USA Today had a piece on stay at home dads this week, which featured my buddy, Andrew. The article discussed how Andrew and his wife, Eliza, split the chores.

You don't have to do the laundry. Moms who stay home with children often assume they must cook, clean and run errands as well. Married, non-employed moms of young kids spend 1.61 hours a day on housework1.41 hours on food prep and clean-up. Some dads excel in these areas. But statistically, married non-employed dads of young kids spend just 0.42 hours a day on housework and 0.64 hours on food chores. Clearly, with men, domestic work and child care are being negotiated as separate jobs.

"When you think about it, the task of caring for kids is logically different from doing the housework," says Joan C. Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at Hastings College of the Law in California. There's no reason that the person who rocks the cradle also needs to pick up the dry cleaning.

The "kids-only" model could really ease the exhaustion and the isolation that goes along with being a SAHM. It was good for me to see Andrew and Bob leaving the family on weekends to run and paint. I also appreciated the six-pack of El Presidente that Andrew would cart to the playground on the back of the stroller. 

The commenters on this blog post were rather ticked off. They point out that "Kids-only" model results in heaping more work on working moms. Again, women get the short end of the stick.

(Ace, looking forward to seeing the gang this weekend.)

Comments

[Lucy]

Thanks for the link to the story about Andrew (and SAHDs in general). Not one of my usual periodicals so I would have missed it.

Say hi to Andrew and Eliza for me--wish I could see them this weekend (they are the ones that turned me on to your blog).

[kip]

All Dad's should do the laundy. They should also cook and do the shopping on the weekends. At least that is what my wife tells me.

[Lisa V]

I stayed home for 12 years. During that time, I frequently pointed out that my job was to take care of the kids, not the house. My husband and I frequently spent weekends and evenings doing chores. Sometimes I did more, but not always. I usually cooked, but that was my preference.

My husband has been staying home for the last year, due to a lay-off. He only has our 6 year old to take care of, and that is only afternoons. He does more housework. He always does dinner. Alas, he stinks at laundry, so I usually still end up doing it unless I have some sort of melt-down and my teenagers do it.

[MH]

I'm not sure how they are categorizing tasks, but "0.64 hours on food chores" wouldn't even get the table, floor, and the toddler clean after lunch in our house.

I do most of the heavy cleaning, but on laundry, I'm only allowed to do my own clothes and whites. I once washed blue cloth napkins with the kitchen towels and tinted them all vaguely blue. I still don't understand why this matters. I knew it could turn the towels blue, but it isn't like the towels stopped working. If you were supposed to treat kitchen towels carefully, you wouldn't be able to use them for most of what you want to use them for and you wouldn't be able to buy a stack of them for a few bucks.

[trishka]

my reaction was the same as the blog commentators - great, since men are so good at balancing their lives, that means women do more housework. again. still.

grrrrrrr.

[laura]

Andrew is really a fantastic dad and deserves every minute of attention.

But I do have a problem with this genre of article. The message is "yes, you silly little women think you know what you're doing, but just check out how much better guys do it."